Coram Boy
Paperback, 128 pages ISBN: 9781854598943Publication Date:
11 Oct 2005
Size: 198mm x 129mm£10.99 £8.79You save £2.20 (20%)
Ebook, 128 pages ISBN: 9781780011660Publication Date:
5 Jan 2015
£10.99 £8.79You save £2.20 (20%)
First Staged:
National Theatre, London, 2005

Coram Boy (stage version)

By Jamila Gavin Adapted by Helen Edmundson

Paperback £10.99£8.79

Ebook £10.99£8.79

  • Time Out Live Award for Best Play - 2006

A heartbreaking tale of orphans, angels, murder and music - dramatised from the Whitbread Award-winning novel set in 18th-century England.

In 18th-century Gloucestershire, the evil Otis Gardner preys on unmarried mothers, promising to take their babies (and their money) to Thomas Coram's hospital for foundling children. Instead, he buries the babies and pockets the loot.

But Otis's downfall is set in train when his half-witted son Meshak falls in love with a young girl, Melissa, and rescues the unwanted son she has had with a disgraced aristocrat. The child is brought up in Coram's hospital, and proves to have inherited the startling musical gifts of his father - gifts that ultimately bring about his father's redemption and a heartbreaking family reunion.

Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Jamila Gavin's award-winning novel, Coram Boy, was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in 2005. It won the Time Out Live Award for Best Play.

'A rich and almost Gothic drama' - Philip Pullman

Set Text: This adaptation of Coram Boy is a set text for AS/A-Level Drama and Theatre Studies (AQA)

Press Quotes

'A triumph... can still make your heart soar'

The Times

'The story has a gripping intensity... there is a tremendous sense of momentum'

Independent

'Family shows don't come much more harrowing than this - but nor do they come any finer... as gripping, terrifying, beautiful and moving as anything you will see in the theatre this year... Helen Edmundson's adaptation does full justice to the dark power of the original, while also transforming it into a thrilling piece of theatre'

Daily Telegraph

'A highly superior show that should appeal to adults and children alike'

Guardian

'Uplifting, shocking, frightening, funny, entertaining, happy and definitely intriguing, and with such glorious music, who could ask for more?'

British Theatre Guide
Paperback,128 pages ISBN: 9781854598943Publication Date:
11 Oct 2005
Size: 198mm x 129mm£10.99 £8.79You save £2.20 (20%)
Ebook,128 pages ISBN: 9781780011660Publication Date:
5 Jan 2015
£10.99 £8.79You save £2.20 (20%)

Also by Helen Edmundson:

Orestes: Blood and Light
The Heresy of Love
The Clearing
Small Island
Thérèse Raquin
Small Island
Mary Shelley
Queen Anne
Mother Teresa is Dead
Anna Karenina
Life is a Dream
Swallows and Amazons
War and Peace
Gone to Earth
The Mill on the Floss

Go to author page...

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